Los Angeles was not all it was made out to be, they glamorized it in movies and on TV and for all those pesky awards shows that her father insisted that they watched. You would think it was the superbowl or something, but this Los Angeles was not like the one depicted in the movies and on TV, it was a lot darker. It was a city in darkness and peril, much like Gotham City. And wasn't it funny that Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle happened to be here? Harvey Dent too. Veronica had almost wanted to tell them that they were fictional, but she figured she'd done enough of that since she got here already.

Fictional people were real here, and real people that Veronica knew, she could not reach. She was not doing so well on her own, for all her independent nature was not going to pay for her to keep sleeping in that shitty little motel. It was so rundown that she should be paid just to stay there. But no one in this city took a teenaged PI seriously. She was only eighteen, what did she know about solving crimes? She knew a lot, but that didn't mean jack shit if no one was willing to listen to her or give her a shot.

She'd almost been hired a few nights back, but then she realized that some guy wanted her to be a stripper for his best friend's bachelor party. Veronica was desperate for money, but not desperate enough to jump out of a cake wearing only nipple tassles, come on, she had some dignity that she'd like to hold on to here.

There already was a pretty famous Private Investigator in town, named of all things...Angel. Now that was ironic, since most PIs, Veronica included tended to operate outside the law more often than not. Of course, where Veronica came from most of the cops, or at the very least...the sheriff was a complete moron. She'd met smarter sandwiches. She'd looked into this Angel guy as much as she could with the little resources that she had, and now it was time to check the place out. Maybe they could work together...or something.

Veronica wasn't exactly a team player, not unless it was with her father, and a select few friends that she trusted enough to help her out, but right now...she didn't have much of an alternative. She could sell her laptop, her sidekick, and her camera, and that might get her by for another week or so but it would also make her pretty useless as a PI. She could probably find another job, maybe work in a coffee shop like she had back in Neptune. She missed Java the Hut sometimes but she'd been kidding herself with that place. It wasn't enough. So now, Veronica was faced with going to the Hyperion hotel, which thankfully wasn't too far of a walk.

She would simply have to learn to play well with others, that was...if they wanted her help at all. They probably wouldn't believe she was qualified either. She'd solved her best friend's murder, and the bus crash, and her own rape, but none of the people responsible ever existed here. Lilly was never alive here. Lilly didn't exist here. Veronica didn't exist here. She was here now, but here...there was no Neptune, California, which left Veronica seriously wondering if she was real at all.

She felt...real enough. Her pain was real. Her silent brooding when she was alone was real enough. But what if she was just another character that had been brought here? If that was the case, her creator was a real douchebag. Teenagers shouldn't have to go through what she had. But...she didn't want to think about that possibility right now.

She decided to head over to the Hyperion, at the very least she could scope out the competition and see what made them tick. She would have done the same back home with Vinnie Van Lowe, but she already knew she was smarter than he was, and she didn't sell herself to the highest bidder, so she had one up on him. But she didn't know how the people in the Hyperion hotel operated. It wasn't wrong, what she was about to do, it was necessary. Veronica had enough good sense and a moral compass not to try and use anything against them, no matter how desperate she was to get by here.

If she could not be a PI and keep her integrity and pride, then she would find something else to do. She could make a macchioto quite easily, and she was a good hostess type too. She had other skills, but she wanted to try to stick to what she was best at, even if her father would probably prefer that she did stick to making coffee.

When she finally reached the Hyperion, she pushed some stray strands of blonde from her eyes and walked through the doors, standing at the top of the stairs. At 5'1" she probably didn't look like much, but what was that saying? Good things come in small packages? She had to try, didn't she?